The Awakening

"Darn these mosquitoes!" she mumbled to herself, flinging her pen onto her notepad and hauling herself off the couch. Slipping into her blue carpet slippers, she stepped to the window and thrust her arm out to pull the window shut. "And I'm going to make short work of this thing one of these days", she muttered darkly, as a thorn from the rose plant on the window sill scratched her bare arm. Again. Glaring balefully, first at the plant and then at her notepad, she sighed. As if it wasn't bad enough that she couldn't, for the life of her, think of a decent script, she fumed. The Head of the Department didn't just trust and encourage her to produce the best script the film school had ever seen - he had practically bulldozed her into it. The expectations were getting to her. It was very unfair, she thought, not sure what she meant by "it".

Irritated and worn out, she cast a glance at the window sill. Stupid rose plant, she decided. Why was it taking forever to bloom? When she had admired her friend Pat's beautiful pink roses, Pat had all but bullied her into taking home a cutting. Everyone gets their way with me, she sulked to herself. And here was this rose plant, resolutely refusing to blossom even three months later; serving no purpose, even ornamental; only getting in the way when she wanted to shut and open the windows, and demanding to be watered twice a day.

Heading to her kitchenette, she began rummaging in her shelves for coffee and sugar.

Two weeks later, she presented her Head with her script. Because the subject was close to her heart, she had put in every last bit of effort. As the Head ran his eyes down the first page, she crossed her fingers hopefully behind her back.

The Head had been curt. No, this wasn't good enough. It wasn't even good.

Back home, eyes burning and tears choking her, she shredded the script into a hundred pieces. It didn't matter...nothing mattered, she thought, looking around to see where she could stuff the script so she would never have to see it again. Spotting the rose plant on the window sill, she walked up to it and savagely pushed the crumpled ball of paper into the very depths of the soil. Angry, hurt and lonely, she flung herself onto the couch.

She opened her eyes to a million dust particles dancing in the ray of sunlight that slanted straight across the room and onto her face. She felt strangely at peace. As sleep left her little by little, the previous evening flashed before her eyes, and even though she had been the only spectator to her tantrum, she felt silly and ashamed of herself. Of course she could do better than that, she thought. She could - she would - write a better script.

Wide awake and very hopeful, she took a deep breath and went up to the window to open it and let the sunshine in. Two steps short of the sill, she stopped dead.

There, on a stem of the plant that faced the sun directly, was a little, pinkish-orange rosebud.

Part I

Walking down the street the other day, I spotted her slipping between the shadows. It was her first appearance in weeks, so I asked her where she had been all this while.

"I needed time off. I still do."

"So why are you here? You won't get any space here. There isn't enough of it."

"There's never enough of it", she sighed. "I'm not the only one looking, you know."

"You still haven't explained your presence here."

"Do I have to, now?" she shot back.

"Yes." I didn't want to begin, but then, she'd started it. "You're never here when you're wanted. Never around when needed. You come and go as and when you please, and the rest of the world be damned. You aren't as dependable as you claim to be, do you know that? And I'm not sure you're wanted here, either." She'd asked for it, I rationalised.

"You didn't invite me over", she pointed out, calmly. "I came on my own. You don't have to bother with me. You were going somewhere, weren't you? Carry on, please."

I turned. Something didn't feel right.

"And how have things been with you?" She was quick to notice my face softening.

"I've been OK", I lied. She had no business knowing, anyway. "Good, in fact. I've been good. What about you?"

"You know", she was looking at me quietly, "if you can't look me in the eye when you're talking to me, it doesn't matter whose eyes you can meet."

"So how many friends have you made? Fallen in love yet?" Light-hearted banter is always a safe way out.

Or is it? Her face fell, then hardened.

"I have nothing left to give. It's not like I don't try, you know. Sometimes", she went on, her voice low and uncertain now, "I miss my days as housekeeper. They called me The Girl with the Broom. I opened windows every morning, all of them, and I loved flicking my checked duster over the furniture and the curtains. Ever seen a shaft of sunlight enter a room?", she sounded like a little girl now, "Ever seen dust dance in the sunlight? Little gray specks?"

"I don't know", I said, doubtfully. "I suppose it's a pretty sight."

"Not pretty", she said, straightening. "Fascinating. Do you know rain is the purest form of water?"

"Natural distillation?" I hazarded a guess. I was never the chemistry teacher's favourite. Geography, though, I was a natural at.

"The purest form", she was saying, "the cleanest. Ever heard the wind blow past the reeds? It whistles."

"Where were you housekeeper?" I was curious now.

"Don't pretend you don't know", she sighed. "That's where you came and borrowed me from."

"But you haven't told me why..."

"It doesn't matter", she said, abruptly. "There's nothing left to keep house for. They moved out long ago. There's nothing there. They were foolish...they took neighbourly charity a little too far, if you ask me. But there it is. It's none of my business, really. I was sent by the agency. I have excellent references, by the way."

"And what do you propose to do with them?" my question sounded sardonic. I was only being curious.

"I'm teaching myself French. I use the backs of the sheets to scribble notes on."

Between Lives

“Is there no other way?” I confess I am pleading. I, too proud even to admit to my own mistakes, am pleading! The evening shadows, entering the room as if they own it, are almost as cold as his eyes.

“We’ve been through this”, his eyes shift from mine to the wall behind me, and I see them hardening. “I cannot deal with it. I have to go. Drawing it out won’t help you – and certainly not me.”

“But why…?”

Somewhere at the back of my mind, hope – hope, like menthol and antiseptic – is beginning to burgeon.


“I’m leaving in another ten minutes. I’ve sent for a cab.”

“But…”

“Must we? Must we? How many times have we talked this over? There is nothing else to be done. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?”

“Is it so easy for you?”

“Don’t ever say that again”. His teeth are clenched. “Don’t you dare.”

“I thought I – ” “Shut up.”

I shut my eyes tight. I’m still too proud to cry.
The sunshine hurts my eyes.
I find myself clenching my fist. And, suddenly, my peace is shattered by a hundred voices.


When I open my eyes again, he is standing by the window. I think – wishfully, perhaps – that his shoulders are drooping. I measure the three steps between us. Slow, heavy steps.

“Don’t”, he spins around, even before I have laid my hand on his shoulder. He knows. He has always known. Known things that I didn’t – and known them before I thought them. He still knows.

“Let’s not make this any tougher than we can help”, he brushes brusquely past me.


I try reaching for his wrist. Something stirs in the depths of my consciousness.
I grasp only air.


I can feel the sobs beginning to convulse me. I’d give anything for a last glance, but I haven’t the strength. I haven’t the strength.

With an effort of will, I look up. Everything is a blur through my tears. He walks down the corridor, and his receding back is all I see. Even through the blur, I can see that he hasn’t looked back once, that he will not look back.

--------------




“I’m here.”

I struggle to open my eyes. Everything is still a blur. My head is throbbing, my mouth parched.

Sunlight filters in through olive green blinds. He notices me glancing with distaste at the blinds, and he laughs. That honest, open laugh that I know better than the sound of my own voice, and love so much.

“You still hate hospitals’ colour schemes, don’t you?” he asks softly, taking my hand and holding it between both of his.
“Goodbye, love.”

As he turns to the tray at my bedside, I close my eyes gratefully.